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Technology Portfolio Management

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Technology Portfolio Management

The technologies that underlie the business applications used in your business
enterprise have a shelf life that must be actively managed and diligently monitored to track their
versions and lifecycle. Use the timeline view of the Technology Portfolio Management to track
their dates and thereafter create a demand or a project to upgrade or retire them.

The technology of a business application is also known as a software model. A software model is
a specific version or configuration of a software.

The software models or the technologies used in your business applications can be operating
systems, database management systems, development tools, and middleware, each of which has a
lifecycle. If these lifecycle stages are not tracked, there are risks where the vendor may not
support them any longer and the business applications that run on these technologies are at
stake.

Creating an inventory of all technologies used in the enterprise helps to

Track the versions of the software and manufacturer support dates for the software.

Set an internal lifecycle guidance for the software.

Assess risk in using outdated software.

Plan to retire them just like the applications they support, at a definite date.

Support upgrade processes.

Internal and external lifecycle stages of the software model

The business applications used in your organization are all linked to one or more application
services. Each of the application services run on one or more technologies or software
models.

Note: In the context of Application Portfolio Management, a business
service is an application service.

The software model has a sequence of lifecycle stages/phases from their installation to
retirement. Internally, business organizations set a date based on the lifecycle phase of the
software models. These phases can be Early Adopter, Mainstream, Declining use, and Retired.

Similarly, the vendor of the software also sets a date for the software based on the vendor
lifecycle phases such as Pre-release, General Availability, End of Life, and Obsolete. The
support from the vendor may vary depending on the phase of the technology. When the software
model reaches the stage of obsolescence, the vendor may stop supporting the technology.

Note: The Publisher choice type of the Lifecycle
type field in the Software Model Lifecycle form is the same as the External Lifecycle
that is being used in APM.

As a software asset management user or a software model manager you have the ability to add
the software model lifecycle details to the software model. To use TPM ensure that the lifecycle
data is populated in the software model table.

Integration with Service Mapping to use Technology Portfolio Management

APM no longer integrates with Service Mapping through the Instances
tab. The application Instances tab has been removed and the
apm_app_instance table has been deprecated, which is replaced by the Application Service
[cmdb_ci_discovered_service] table. Any data existing in the application instances table must be
migrated to the application services table. If you are upgrading to the London release, then contact the ServiceNow personnel for migrating the
data.

Note: If you are using Application Services [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table for application
instances, then you can proceed to upgrade from Kingston. However, if you are using the
deprecated apm_app_instance table to store application instances, then data in apm_app_instance
table must be migrated to Application Services [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table.

Figure 1. Connecting software lifecycles to business application

TPM depends on SAM to retrieve the technology information of the software product

You can use Technology Portfolio Management even if you do not have Software Asset Management
(SAM) installed. A preconfigured Software Product Model table is available to all TPM users. You
can create a list of all software models that your organization uses either manually or import
from existing database or source.

Figure 2. Connecting software lifecycles to business application

Using TPM depends on SAM plugins and the dependency is as follows:

With SAM Premium plugin

To access the Product Classification [samp_sw_product] table you require the Software Asset
Management Premium plugin. Reference of samp_sw_product_classification is present in
samp_sw_product table. This content table is referenced in the Software Product Model
[cmdb_software_product_model] table to retrieve the technology information. Subscribing to SAM
Premium plugin enables you to view the applications By Business
Applications as well as By Technology Category in the TPM
timeline view.

Without SAM plugin

Product classification is not available without this plugin and hence view By
Technology Category is not available in the TPM timeline view. Software model
information is retrieved from SW Product Model [cmdb_software_product_model] table. You must
populate this table manually or export the content from an excel sheet.

The timeline view of the Technology Portfolio Management displays the internal and external life cycle phases of all technologies or the software models being used in your organization. The stages at which the technology is in terms of risk factor is color coded.

Business applications can have multiple instances. Application instances are nothing but business services. Relate business applications to instances by relating business applications to business services. Business application and business service are two different configuration items which must be related through a CI relationship.

Business applications have multiple instances such as development, QA, and production. Instances are nothing but business services. Hence business services must be associated with software models to know the risk of the business service.

The risks on the software model and business application is time dependent. Based on the external and internal lifecycles the risk changes every day, hence the risk must be calculated daily. A scheduled job is created that runs daily and calculates the risks of the software model and the business application.